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Richie. It made me damn proud to see Xavier going straight through college in the manner in which he was—that was with no interruptions at all.
    â€œYo, we gots to get paid this summer!” Latiefe said as we talked on that early morning. “I’m talking about big time loot! No nickel and dime nonsense! Y’all see how every week those chickenheads be sweating those punk niggas just ’cause they got dough? Every week it’s the same thing. And if it’s not at the Apollo, then it’s somewhere else, but all I’m sayin’ is the only thing that them cats be having over us is the fact that they have more chips than we do, and that’s why they be flossin’ and we don’t.”
    â€œWord,” Randy replied, “and half those cars out there are from drug money. You know cats ain’t working nine to fives in order to pay for those rides. You can’t! How the hell is a twenty-year-old gonna be driving a 500SL? What job is paying dough like that?”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I’m saying,” Tee continued. “Yo, we’re gonna be out there soon. Real soon! This summer we ain’t gonna be poor, broke, and pitiful, nah, not like last summer. We ain’t gonna be sitting around looking at each other and pulling our penises. To hell with that! We’re getting paid this summer. Watch! Ninety-one is gonna be the summer we really have fun.”
    By now it was nearing five in the morning. The sun was rising. I was tired, as was everyone else. I was ready to put my head on my pillow and be out.
    â€œYo, I’m outta here,” I informed the crew.
    â€œSo, Holz, what’s up?” Latiefe asked before I departed. “You wit’ it, or what? You wanna get paid?”
    â€œNo doubt,” I responded, “You know I’m wit’ it, kid.”
    â€œA’ight, bet, then we have to really discuss this. We have to sit down and map everything out. I know we gotta get some sleep, but before this week is over we have to talk and we gotta get started. Every year we talk all of this and all of that about how we should do this, that, and the third, and so on, and whatever, and it’s always just talk! But that’s over with. I’m dead up serious!”
    â€œAll right, bet,” we all replied as we gave each other pounds and departed on our separate ways to our beds.
    As I lay in my bed that morning just staring into space, I thought about all of the cars and women that I’d seen uptown. It was just the beginning of the summer, so that’s probably why there was such an abundance of heads out that night.
    Man, nothing but fly cars , I thought.
    The drug game scared me a little. Honestly, I didn’t think I had the heart for it. I was intrigued by the profit potential, and I knew for a fact that it could bring me all of the material things that I wanted, but maybe it was a dead end. Most of the time it was either a cell or a grave. In the past, the crew discussed the idea of selling drugs, but fortunately all that it had ever amounted to was talk. Now, though, for some strange reason—maybe it was the fear that I was sensing—but I could sense that our desires for material things were about to lead us beyond just the conversations of illegal ways of getting paid.
    I couldn’t have a conscience. I just had to be down for whateva.
    I stared at the wall in my room for a little while longer. All sorts of crazy chaotic thoughts filled my head and raced back and forth in my mind. Thoughts of fear mixed with thoughts of wanting to be down. I knew that even if I was scared that I couldn’t front and still be considered a down ass nigga. And I knew that if I went through with everything that a big part of me wouldn’t really be staying true to who I was. I had told Latiefe that I was wit’ it but I knew that I really wasn’t. I got up out of my bed and I rammed my fist into my bedroom wall. I